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Back in 2012, I struggled to pick a defensive MVP, as the Titans struggled to consistently perform at a respectable level against both the run and the pass. That’s what happens when you have a pretty lousy defense that gives up a ton of points and rates miserably by advanced metrics. For instance, that 2012 defense was the worst in the league by Pro-Football-Reference’s Simple Rating System and 25th by Football Outsiders’ DVOA (I wrote for FO perma-disclaimer). In the season just concluded, they came out worst by SRS and were 29th by DVOA. Once again, my thought was, do I really have to pick a defensive MVP? Once again, I decided I must.
Having decided to do so, who to pick was obvious. Delanie Walker was pretty much everyone’s choice, including mine, as this year’s offensive MVP. Jurrell Casey was just as obvious a pick on the other side of the ball. On the face of it, 2014 seemed like a bit of a down season for Casey. He went from 10.5 sacks and a handful of votes for All-Pro to just 5.0 sacks and no postseason honors while at the same time the defense declined sharply. None of that changed that he was still the Titans’ best, most consistently disruptive defensive player. He played a boatload of snaps, especially for a Ray Horton defensive lineman (911, 79.8%), and led all Titans defenders in Defeats, which includes turnovers, tackles for loss, and third down tackles short of the sticks. His 45 Run Stops, based on tackles awarded by the official scorer on an unsuccessful play for the offense, actually led all NFL defensive linemen. I wasn’t expecting that, but it does suggest he was still a very effective player.
Who would I have picked if not Casey? Unlike offense, there were a reasonable number of options. Seven defenders, including Casey, played at least 70% of the time. I picked Derrick Morgan back in 2012, almost by default, and his transition to outside linebacker in Ray Horton’s 3-4 brought another very Derrick Morgan-like season. He actually led the team in sacks with 6.5, though once again with many more nominal hurries than effective pressures, and did his usual solid work in run defense. Wesley Woodyard and Avery Williamson both crossed that playing time threshold as well; I’ll go into this in more detail when I get to the ILB position analysis, but I think I was higher on Woodyard’s play than most Titans observers. Expectations probably had something to do with that. He had a lot of solid plays and led the team in tackles (per the coaches’ count, which I trust more than the official scorer’s count), but was not a high-impact player. Williamson had a nice stretch in the middle of the season and finished third on the team in tackles. Jason McCourty, Michael Griffin, and George Wilson (barely) also played at least 70% of the time; of the three, I was probably most impressed by Griffin, who continued to play energetically and reasonably effectively even after Bernard Pollard went down and finished second on the team in tackles. I did not seriously considered selecting any of the six over Casey.
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